Question

The audit profession is at an important crossroads, and we can take one of two courses: 1) maintain the status quo and do nothing or 2) become architects of our future.

We are called to be architects of (our) future, not its victims. R. Buckminster Fuller

Successful firm leaders must shape their audit process to be more nimble, more flexible and more innovative in short, better organized to deliver insight and relevance. As we look forward to the future, firm leaders must create a culture that welcomes challenges to the status quo and capitalizes on technology to enable audit processes. Advances in technology and the massive proliferation of available information have created a new landscape for financial reporting. The audit technology tools that are in the cloud today, that integrate platform and methodology, are very good starting points to move to the future. Add cognitive computing and data analytics once they are more fully evolved, and the result could be an audit game-changer. However, to successfully impact the future of audits, we must recognize the key challenges facing the audit profession.

Required:

Briefly discuss five (5) examples of recent suggestions that have been made to enhance the confidence of businesses, the economy, and society in auditing profession.